Development of phonological awareness in bilingual chinese children.
This study investigated the phonological awareness of 219 first, second, and fourth grade Cantonese-speaking children from the south of China, who received immersion Mandarin instruction beginning in the first grade. Children received onset, rime and tone awareness tasks in Cantonese and Mandarin. Children performed better on the Cantonese onset awareness task in grade one, but the difference disappeared in higher grades. However, their performance on the rime and tone awareness tasks was better in Mandarin. These results reflect the phonological structure of the two languages: Mandarin has a more complex onset system, whereas Cantonese has more complex tone and rime systems. Moreover, children's phonological awareness increased faster in Mandarin, which likely resulted from Mandarin instruction. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested that onset-rime awareness is a universal construct, whereas tone awareness is a language-specific construct.
Chen
Xi
X
Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West 9th Floor, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5S1V6. chen-bumgardner@oise.utoronto.ca
Ku
Yu-Min
YM
Koyama
Emiko
E
Anderson
Richard C
RC
Li
Wenling
W
D002648:Child; D002681:China; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D019303:Multilingualism; D010700:Phonetics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014163:Transfer, Psychology